zero till

[fjlip]

Organic guys still use moldboard plows here, is that turned back far enough? We must change with conditions or we are done. Zero till conserves moisture, the last thing a lot of land needs right now!

[grgsrvc]

Just need some perennial crops like
pasture. Oh yeah most of you grain guys
are too good for critters. Hate to break
it to you triple A farmers but April,
August and Arizona is not reality. Put up
some fence, buy a few ruminants, and be
happy that its raining again...

[jensend]

exactly. if i had my way every year would be a lot like this.

[fjlip]

WRONG, not a perfect solution, haying was a fight all summer, most normally hayed areas flooded. Crop was cut and baled or silage. Pens were slop up to their bellies. Pastures look cultivated. Now they CAN NOT move the bales till ground freezes, neighbor buried MFWD just moving bales in the field. Many bales sitting in water. WET is NO picnic for the cattle guys either. Just like every grain grower and all town folks with wrecked and flooded basements, RM's with terrible roads, TOO MUCH RAIN IS A PAIN IN THE A**!

[jensend]

just making the point that this ain't all bad. i've got 400 acres didn't get baled but i don't get $30/ac for too wet. i'll still get some use out of it by swath grazing or carryover but it took until the end of june before we started to fill sloughs. grainfarming encourages runoff. the grainland we've taken over the sloughs have dried up for the most part because we get the water into the soil instead of running all over my and the neighbour's land. a lot of the sloughs we have left are recharged from neighbouring grain land. in the meantime i've got more grass than ever and next year we'll need a couple hundred more cows.

[newguy]

In our area I think zero till has resulted in less surface water. Less erosion on rolly land and all round healthier soil. Now if you get a wet spring and have chem fallow that is the last land to dry out.

[hedgehog]

is a disker better when ground is wet?